


King and Lionheart

by HogwartsToAlexandria



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Arranged Marriage, Bonding, Falling In Love, Fantasy Lore and Magical Elements, Fantasy Religion, First Kiss, First Meeting, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Grief, Happy Ending, Historical Fantasy, Loss of a Spouse (past), M/M, Meddling Families, References to Wars and Casualties, Rituals, Royalty, soulbonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:01:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27836500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HogwartsToAlexandria/pseuds/HogwartsToAlexandria
Summary: and in the winter night sky, ships are sailing"Zola thought back on his last few days on the Mine Island, Southshore's royal castle and folded his arms over his knees, resting his chin there too. He closed his eyes and imagined he could still hear his sisters laughing, his father chanting the voice-tellings, his mother whispering words of wisdom.He was to wed a king today, a king who he had been kept from meeting or even glancing at while negotiations happened between South and North. A king he knew nothing of but the stories of the bards and soldiers of the Guard who had once been to the North, or fought in the central lands with Northerners."Zola knew nothing of the man he would marry that day, and yet he smiled, ready to meet his destiny.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character, Scarred Unloved King/Foreign Prince Given to Him to Seal Allyship
Comments: 14
Kudos: 53
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	1. across shores

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gargant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gargant/gifts).



> The album which has the song that gave this fic its title and which I have listened to on a loop as I wrote is My Head is an Animal, by Of Monsters and Men. You can access it on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/4p9dVvZDaZliSjTCbFRhJy?si=ueHx8WUnQLCV4hPzb55psA) or [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM5k_l2ShxFB_63qQ4kpli2E3wPDGP2zr) to listen as you read! 
> 
> I hope this fits your tastes dear recip, and that this story is enjoyable!
> 
> I also need to thank Gammarad a million times for the spag help and the much needed last minute brainstorm. It was invaluable, thank you again so much.
> 
> (Rating only applicable to the final chapter)
> 
> Now onto Zola and Eli's story 👑

### The first of moons incomplete

_ "Gone is my son, whose destiny fated him to be both burdened and blessed with the calling of uniting our two lands. Gone are you, Zola Zolainas, son of Ali Alexian, King of the Southshore. As the voice told the skies." _

Watching the sea got old — as life went on and the crashing waves kept crashing, year after year after decade inconsistent in their rhythm yet unperturbed in their purpose. It was a representation of untold adventures on the other side, a daily reminder of Zola's royal duty. That of crossing bridges not yet built. One day he would be sailing a strange ship through the heavy night skies, following the path the stars drew for him. He would be meeting King Eli Eliastenas of the Northshore, and sitting under him, as the voice told their kind — as his right and left hand both, as his Lionheart, if fate allowed. This day had arrived but—

Truth was, now that Zola was on the boat, he felt rather seasick. All the dreams he'd had of feeling at home at sea, all the thoughts he'd harbored of letting his head hang overboard to smell the salt as close as he would be able to, they all vanished once the sea started to move under them, angry as any element could get, stealing the balance under Zola's feet and stomach. So he stayed put, first in the cabin the Guard had indicated was his for the journey, and then when he was bored enough to fear his sanity was at stake, on the deck, sitting on the wooden planks of the deck floor, watching the brouhaha unfold. 

Zola had always been a solar child, and growing into his fated age of marriage did not change it in the slightest, but then again, his mother always did say that short of death, nothing should rob a man of his passion for life. So he stayed fascinated by the men and women working around him, tireless as they pulled on ropes he didn't know the function of, sweating so abundantly that their grasps on the ropes sometimes slipped. 

He stared at the scars on one of the men's backs, the deep, almost patterned knots of pinkened flesh that would always look as raw as new, spread about the man's spine, reaching for his shoulders, too. Zola stared at him, thinking of all the wars he must have fought and of all the dangers he must have faced. He imagined the warrior was a knight and let himself picture him in armor, but it wasn't right, because the armor he was seeing in his mind's eye resembled that of his father's Guard, and it was quite self-evident that the Northshore must have their own, different one. 

Zola smiled when the man caught him staring, and then looked away when instead of returning it, the warrior frowned at him — in surprise or in annoyance, Zola chose not to push it. He'd much rather resume people-watching with the rest of the crew. There were enough souls on this ship to people a small Southside borough, so there was plenty enough to busy himself elsewhere. 

Zola thought back on his last few days on the Mine Island, Southshore's royal castle and folded his arms over his knees, resting his chin there too. He closed his eyes and imagined he could still hear his sisters laughing, his father chanting the voice-tellings, his mother whispering words of wisdom. 

He was to wed a king today, a king who he had been kept from meeting or even glancing at while negotiations happened between South and North. A king he knew nothing of but the stories of the bards and soldiers of the Guard who had once been to the North, or fought in the central lands with Northerners. 

He knew of his reputation, of the way he treated his people, and the way he stayed in his castle most of the day, most of the time. Zola's father preferred working among his people, and so he did, mining the lands with men and women old and young and rich and poor. It was the way of Zola's home and family. But King Eli apparently had different preferences. 

Zola hoped, with all his heart he hoped, that he would reach an understanding of his soon-to-be husband, that he would be allowed to see him, and know him, and love him perhaps one day. 

Zola hoped, and sighed as he did, opening his eyes again, only to see that same warrior was the one staring at him this time. 

He was rather breathtaking. The scars might have been deemed ugly in another man's eye, but Zola was raised to see bravery in damaged bodies, to see beauty in memories, and weren't scars just that? Memories one bore for everyone else to see, for they were branded on one's skin, and yet not understand unless the bearer explained away their scars. Zola thought the warrior was pretty, in his very own way, even if his gaze didn't speak of the particular delicacy Zola most often favored in people, even if he once again did not return Zola's smile, even as Zola lost eye contact with him when a member of the Guard came to stand in front of him, tall and leaving no room for arguments. 

"Up. You are to ready yourself for the bonding ceremony." 

Zola nodded, something short and respectful like his mother taught him forever ago, when he was a simple child who knew nothing of his fate. He got up, dusted off his robes and followed the knight back into his cabin, then sagged against the heavy door when the man left him alone. If mist invaded his eyes for a second, Zola tried not to dwell on it — he had been raised to be grateful in the face of duty, and ensuring the partnership of the South and North would go on for another generation was his task to fulfill in life and thereafter. Still, remembering the brave face his mother had put on as Zola boarded the ship, the ruined paints on his sisters' faces, tears rolling down their cheeks as they waved, and the solemnity with which his father had embraced him as he bid him goodbye — clear sign of his emotion — all of it bubbled up and Zola let it, for a moment. 

Then he blinked, and forced a real smile to lift the corners of his lips, and opened the chest at the foot of his bed. He didn't have maids on the ship, tradition told he was to do this by himself, show the King respect, and honor his family in his presentation to the ceremony, to his wedding. To the seal on his entire future. 

He could do this. It wouldn't be the first time Zola dressed himself, no matter how much his mother had wished he would let his cloth-ladies help him into the various gowns and attires he had worn over his first eighteen years of life. He smiled as he thought of them too, the women who had devoted their lives to the service of his family, and who, when he turned out to be a boy, just carried on with their duties like he was any other member of the until then mostly female family. Thinking about them made him feel warmer, readier. They had taught him everything he needed to know for this day. He could do this. 

If only his hands stopped trembling so much. 

His ceremonial gown was beautiful. At least he thought so. It was everything the Southshore was proud of — the silk of the plains, the lace of the riverbanks, the pearls of the shoremen and the jewels of the mines. All embroidered by his mother, his sisters, and himself, over the course of years. 

It was heavy, and it sat on his shoulders like the cloak of an ancient tale's mage, draped his body like the warmest blanket, yet left his feet bare and his toes curling for purchase on the planks of his cabin. 

He was ready in less time than it had ever taken him to go through the steps in his mind, the many many times he dreamed of this day. 

The tiara was last, and it was more of a ribbon than a crown really, but as Zola knotted it at the back of his neck, letting the two wide strands flow down his back when he was done securing it in his frizzy hair, he felt a single tear run down his cheek into the hollow of his throat. He was ready, and he wasn't sure if nerves or wistfulness were more appropriate as he faced the door again and turned the knob until it slid open. 

* * *

Nobody stood behind the door. Nobody sat in the narrow hallway connecting the cabins to the lower deck. Zola saw no one until he made it to the bottom of the few steps, five, that led to the main deck, and there, as tradition demanded, he saw them all — the ship's crew, the royal Guard, and him. The King. Facing away from Zola and watching the quiet river waves. 

Zola took a deep breath, did not bite his bottom lip — he could hear his mother chastise him in his mind — and walked up to the next part of his life. 

The scars, the deep, red, healed yet not gone battle wounds, that's what made Zola frown when he made it to his place behind King Eli. The heavy cape of velvet red and knitted golden threads did not cover him whole. It fell in the middle of his back, between two shoulder blades that looked bigger than Zola had ever seen on a man, and let him see the skin, as bare as his feet, marked with exploits told around campfires. Marks Zola had already glanced at throughout the day. 

The priestess of the Guard cleared her throat, rang the little bells of life she held in her left palm, quieting even the smallest murmur in the crowd and prompting the King to turn around to face Zola. 

King Eli Eliastenas of the Northshore, with dark blue eyes and a scar welted in his right cheekbone — the pretty warrior Zola had been watching all afternoon — was now staring right back into Zola's eyes. 

Perhaps Zola made a noise, or took a step back, maybe even forward for all he knew, but whatever he did, it made the King's lips tilt up in what Zola could only comprehend was a smile, making him vow to do everything he could to see it happen again in the future. 

Fear and anticipation were melding in Zola's spine, a liquid form of balm gliding down his shaky self, rooting him in place, making him feel everything, yet two very distinct elements the most. First the rocking of the ship and the way his balance adjusted to every back and forth, and then the anchor, the pull, the hook of who would be his husband, of who was the King he was to both bow to and resist enough to be of use as a Lionheart, if he ever was his Lionheart, staring at him with undisturbed focus. 

"Hands," the priestess started then, "joined in a cross as you hold onto each other's wrists." 

This was the part Zola and his sisters had rehearsed, played pretend with, wrote entire theatrical pieces about. 

Eli reached for his wrists at the same time as Zola shook the memory of Aloisis and Maya out of his mind. There was no electric current, no magical spark, but a serenity descended upon Zola as he watched the King's hands wrap around him and did his best to match his grasp, then looked up again. 

"Brows, united in sweat and blood, placated in honor and in love, toiling to maintain peace as one, laughing in the path of the merry, humbled in the tales of the voice." 

Together, Eli and Zola took a step forward, Eli leaning down and Zola facing up as they rested their foreheads against one another, their eyes closing. 

"One King and the Lionheart he has elected to become. One Prince, of heart and honor and gleeful presence. One King and the Prince he shall make his, in a week of moons incomplete; One Prince and the King he shall offer himself to, after a week of a full moon's awaiting." 

Zola squeezed King Eli's wrists then, and sobbed when he felt him do the same. 

"Chant the tellings of the voice with me…" The priestess started, and Eli spoke with her, his brow still resting against Zola's and his breath hitting his mouth with each word. 

"I, King Eli Eliastenas of the Northshore, take Zola Zolainas, son of Ali Alexian and Prince of the Southshore, to be together in the waves of life and in the ways of ruling. Take Zola Zolainas, son of Ali Alexian and Prince of the Southshore, to become my ring bearer and my Lionheart in a week's worth of moons, if the voice tells the skies." 

_ "And I, Zola Zolainas, son of Ali Alexian and Prince of the Southshore…" _

  
  



	2. hard ground

The ceremony that Zola daydreamed about his entire teenhood, from the moment he was told to the moment it fully sunk in that he was to fulfill the voice's tellings and perpetuate peace for his homeshore; it was all over quicker than Zola had envisioned. Momentous events often happened that way, faster than a blink. Faster than one's body could fully comprehend, let alone one's mind after it has reveled in the dream for so long.

Still, Zola was pretty sure the afterglow of a life-changing, destiny-fulfilling wedding was not meant to vanish quite as quickly as it did for his. 

Their hands barely gone from each other's wrists and forearms, the tears of the voice barely dried on their cheeks and already, the ship stalled to a halt. Zola barely had time to take in a long breath before they were there. Northshore. The foreign land on the other side of the delta that meant there was no going back, that meant Zola's life would now be happening all on a soil he had not yet even brushed a toe on. Most people never crossed shores in their lives, the passage too dangerous to be rewarding unless you were making a living out of the risk taken, but for Zola, and the Lionhearts before him, crossing shores was part of the rituals that would bond him to his husband and new King. 

The Northshore soil, from this day onward, was to not be foreign any longer, but on the contrary, enough of a home that he should rule it, come a week and the last of the wedding rituals, when he would stand tall and Lionheart to the land's King. 

Zola's comedown to cold hard ground did not stop there — he was in the way of the Guard as they maneuvered ropes and poles and the King went with them. He was in the way as they shouted instructions every which way and he only understood a fraction of them. The Southshore's strength did not lie at sea but deep into the earth and across acres of plains. 

He made himself as small and circumspect as he possibly could and watched everyone at work — the lady of the Guard with the long braided green hair who had smiled at him as he boarded the ship, the gentle Knight who had warned him about the terrible smell of the fish banquet preparations earlier in the morning, the short man with the tattoos and the pierced brows who had been making the others laugh all throughout the day and had seemed rather familiar with the scarred warrior who Zola now knew to be the King. He watched, and tried not to miss the quiet warmth that had enveloped him when the priestess married him to the single most impressive man Zola had ever seen. 

The Guard soon looked satisfied with their work though, and as the ship only gently swayed in the bay, Zola realized he hadn't even peeped over the side of it to see the land, and its people gathered there. He did now. He certainly did, but what he saw once again took him by surprise. 

The decks looked pristine and exactly what one should expect of a shore as wealthy as the North had been described to Zola, but the people, who he had pictured gleeful and festive, they did not match the image Zola had in mind. Neither did their voices. They were not gleeful. They were not festive. The people assembled on the shore were not here to celebrate, and for the first time since Zola had set foot on the boat, instead of feeling anticipation and a faint sense of nostalgia for his own life, fear spread inside him. 

They were booing, yelling slurs Zola's ears had only heard when he ventured into the lesser frequentable parts of his home capital. The ventures which had invariably made his mother, worried sick, tell him off when he came back, energized.

Zola did not feel energized or even slightly adventurous now. His people had cheered and cried and sworn their fealty to him as he left and his father kissed his forehead goodbye. Nothing on the decks of the Northshore resembled that. Nothing at all. 

Zola searched for the King's gaze, but the man was otherwise busy staring at the crowd himself. His jaw was locked and his eyes did not display the same cautious gentleness Zola had thought he saw during their ceremony. His hands were steady, one holding onto his belt and the other balancing at his side in the ship's rhythm, like a man who's seen a war. Like a man who is not intimidated — so even though Zola could not manage eye contact, he still felt better for looking at King Eli. He felt more rooted, even as they still stood on moving water. 

"Time to go, sirs," the gentle Knight with the tattoos warned, barely enough words for Zola to stand up straighter and he was already pushing the bridge onto the deck, two men on either side of him carefully lowering it down with more rope. 

Still those voices, shouting slurs. Blurred shapes and colors and now and then a particularly vivid face coming into view. Distorted in anger. Then quickly replaced by the same dusty pale sandstone pavement Zola forced himself to look at rather than stare at the Northshore people. The same rage-fueled chanting, carrying and carrying still, until Zola felt a hand on his shoulder, pushing him forward, making him walk faster. 

He thought they would never get out of the crowd, no matter that the Guard was doing a great job at making sure no one touched him. The assault on his senses came from everywhere at once, except for the ground under his feet. Zola focused on that, on the solid ground and how his feet touched it and lifted and repeat. 

The noise of heavy doors closing behind him took a moment to register. He saw the sandstone turn to marble and raise in stairs, he saw the golden lines framing each tile, but the sudden silence only filtered through his focus after the man walking in front of him, whose steps he'd been matching his own to, stopped abruptly and Zola almost bumped into him. Almost bumped into his husband, his King now for all reasons and purposes. 

"What—" Zola tried to ask. 

"Not now, not here." The lady with the braids cut him off. 

Zola looked at her, saw how her jaw worked and how her eyes were squinted — battle-ready, adrenaline still coursing through everyone's veins if Zola's glance around at the rest of the Guard was any clue. He nodded, short, decisive, appropriate he thought. 

No one said anything else. King Eli did not turn around, and even just looking at his back, Zola could see how tense he must be. His stance looked nothing like what it had been on the ship. 

The Guard resumed walking, and with them the King, and Zola followed without question. Sparse words he thought he'd heard taunting him with every step, but none of them made sense to him. 

_ "Recluse!"  _

_ "Abandoned!" _

_ "Unworthy!" _

* * *

Off the walls of each hall in the palace, the Guard and Zola's steps echoed, those of the King too. Loud, yet not loud enough to erase the memory of the crowd's booing, nor the achingly heavy breathing Zola couldn't get under control that wheezed in and out and made his ears buzz with it. 

Shaken did not even begin to cover the state he was in. Shocked, beyond measure, that this was how the people of Northshore had chosen to welcome their King, their highest official, and, in a milder consideration, himself, chosen by the voice to become their Lionheart too. 

The very state he was in prevented Zola from really wondering what had happened here for the people to hate their ruler so much. He did, continually, ask himself why, like a daunting question rolling and bumping and shouting in his mind like that woman who had tried to push the knights out of the way to get to him, insults spilling from her lips as she was roughly pushed away. But Zola wasn't so much looking for an explanation as he was looking to relieve the intense pressure inside him, and to stop the tears that were now free-falling down his cheeks. 

He didn't even know if his crying could be heard by the others, or by the King himself, but if it was the case, no one turned to him, be that to soothe or shush him. 

Walking to the quarters that would now be his, as they were Eli's, took long minutes, dozens and dozens of difficult steps. Until they were there and the Guard made itself scarce, disappearing through the double doors one after the other, quiet and with their faces closed. 

Zola felt like collapsing right there on the reddish carpet that covered most of the marble floor. He felt like kneeling at the feet of his new husband, rubbing his face in the silk covering his knees, and asking for anything: an explanation,  _ something _ that would make the tears dry out. 

"Eli, what— what just happened? I thought… Eli?" Zola tried, his voice getting softer and softer as the King's shoulders jumped up, and he turned around so briskly and with an anger only equated by the fury of his eyes that Zola's voice altogether died in his throat. 

"My name," Eli started, voice threatening and face lost to a numbing cold, "Is King Eliastenas. To everyone, including  _ you _ . Protocols are in place for a reason, and under my roof, you will follow them." 

That was all the King said. And then he left the main room through a door Zola didn't even peek through. 

He did fall to his knees then. Exhausted. Alone. Wretched with grief. 

Protocols. Inside the quarters and marriage he had shored over for. Inside his heart, iced down by fury from all sides, and all souls he did not even know. 

The eyes of the scarred warrior he had thought pretty, branded in his brain together with the menacing, accusatory tone of a voice he had dreamed would call him gentle names, and embrace him for a week until the full moon, and for a life until death. 

Zola stayed there, curled up on himself, on the carpet his trembling fingers trailed patterns in, for what could have been hours. He remained alone until the sun was ready to set, and careful hands touched his shoulders. 

"You ought to ready yourself for the night, sir." A knight told him, not moving from where he stood by the double-doored entry, behind the woman who had presumably touched him. 

There were three of them, and one tried to smile at him, but Zola only sobbed harder. He got up though, and followed them through yet another door, which he now understood led to his personal room. 

Silent tears rolled down Zola's face. He didn't know what he had expected. Didn't know what he thought would happen when he questioned Eli —  _ King Eliastenas _ — but it certainly was not what had actually happened. 

Of all the images his mind had come up with when he was back in his room, back at the palace, back in the Southshore, slipping into a cold, empty bed on his own on the first night without so much as a look from his new husband had not been a part of it. He'd never even thought things could go down this way. Never even thought he would feel so dreadfully lonely on the very first day of his new life. 

The voice hadn't told of nights like the one Zola was preparing for. It hadn't given any teachings or guidance to steer himself in the right direction, or any direction other than that of his Lionheart fate, and the tales of Lionhearts before him, who had gone across shores, and been adopted by a land not theirs. 

Zola did not wish for glory. Being acclaimed by a people was not something he dreamed of, nor thought of as something that happened if you wished for it at all. Praise and appreciation came with work, came from building trust, came with time, if it came at all. Zola knew that, and for that very reason, all he had ever dreamed of when thinking about his adult life, was duty, and, with the way he had been raised, love. For in Zola's house, in Zola's family, neither stood on its own. Love fed a duty that was then well-fulfilled, and a duty carried with grace and competence only made love stronger. 

Zola never considered the possibility of his first night as a married prince being a lonely one. 

Tradition wanted the newlyweds not to sleep in the same room until all incomplete moons faded away to leave in their place a full one, but the gut-wrenching pain in his stomach was not that. 

The maids Zola hadn't yet learned the names of were working to divest him of his clothes. Equally silent, and dutiful in their own right. If he had paid more attention, he would have remarked on their soft braids, and on their gentle hands as they cleaned his arms and legs and one of them massaged oil into his curls. 

Trying not to sob took too much of his focus away but he did appreciate the familiarity of them being cloth-ladies rather than valets. It was his understanding that the Northshore usually employed men to dress and undress men, but of all the things that were unrecognizably different about his life on this night, Zola was grateful this was not one of them. 

"Prince Zolainas? Sir?" 

Zola blinked, aware of every millimeter of skin the tear it freed traveled. The three maids were waiting by the door, the one who had talked nervously playing with a ring on her index finger. They must have been standing there for a while — Zola knew they were not normally allowed to talk to him unless addressed; another point of etiquette that made his heart ache. His maids back at Southshore had been his best friends all throughout his childhood. 

"Yes?" he responded, trying his best to smile so she would know he was not mad at her for breaking protocol. The intent seemed to go through, but whether his smile actually looked like a smile was a different question. 

"We are finished for the night, my Prince," she said, then bowed her head. 

Zola tried not to feel revulsed at the title. Ultimately though, he only half succeeded —

"Your name?" 

If the girl was startled by the question, she hid it well. Her voice was almost cheerful when she answered him, "Heloise, sir, my name is Heloise." The girl nodded. 

Zola smiled for real this time. "Thank you, Heloise. And you two as well."

He tried, he really tried, but just before the girls passed the door, Zola turned back around and added, "And, at least in here, call me Zola, please." 

The surprise on their features was visible this time, but Zola simply watched them leave, without a word more. There was no chance they hadn't heard the quarrel that had preceded his retreat into this room, and therefore known the reason for his tears. He didn't regret caving. If he was to be Lionheart, if the voice truly confirmed him, then he would have to put up fights for things he believed in when necessary — overly formal etiquette in the privacy of his own quarters was not a part of what Zola considered fundamental. Nor had his parents. It wasn't naive to want a semblance of warmth in one's home. 

It wasn't too much to ask. 

  
  
  



	3. blooming paths

### The second of moons incomplete

For all that Zola fell asleep with puffy eyes and a sore throat, almost resenting the foreign feel of his new sheets, the unfamiliar build of his new mattress, when he opened his eyes again, the soft rays of an early morning sun filtering through the beige curtains at the windows, he felt rested. He blinked, an odd feeling of being watched clinging to him as he sat up in bed, looking around his room. 

He hadn't taken the time to really inspect it the night before, his mind too otherwise occupied. It was pretty, spacious and noble in the materials chosen to furnish and decorate it. And it was empty. No one watching him. Oh well, dreams did that sometimes, clung to him until he was up and dressed, ready for a new day in the world. 

Zola took a deep breath through his fingers as he rubbed his face. Then he forced himself to smile. He would put the night before behind him, and just give the King a wide berth for the day. 

Elected Lionhearts were not allowed to cross shores until they reached appropriate wedding age and their King-to-be prayed to the voice and announced their readiness to marry. Therefore, Zola hadn't the slightest idea of what the outside of the castle looked like — the rather unwelcomed arrival they had made the day before certainly had not let him take in the sights. 

So it was decided. He would be touring the city today. 

Heloise came back into his room, alone this time, and helped him into new robes made of materials Zola knew were made here, in the rare plains of the Northshore, but had never seen or touched before. He liked them, the roughness of them on the outside and the warmth and caress of them where the fabric rubbed over his skin. 

She brushed his curls with a large-toothed comb, rubbing oil into them the same way she had done the night before, and finally cleaned his face with a cloth that was softer than cotton candy tasted. She finished taking care of him by massaging more oil into his feet, drying them, and slipping light flats onto them. 

"You are ready, my—"

"Zola, please." He pleaded, trying not to let her hesitance dampen his better mood. 

"Zola." Heloise nodded. "Ready to wander around our city." 

"Any advice?" 

Heloise gave him a smile, surprised again that he would ask, Zola figured. 

"Taste the grapes, and do not let the folk of the docks too close."

It was Zola's turn to smile, "Handsy crowd?" 

"Handsy crowd indeed, my prince." 

"Thank you, Heloise." 

"I hope the walk will be enjoyable." She nodded, and then left the room as she had entered it, completely silent on her feet, and very quiet with the well-oiled door. 

He hoped it would be, too. 

The flats Heloise put on his feet somehow cushioned Zola's feet perfectly. He walked down the hallways of the castle with ease, strolled down narrow paved streets with nothing but a gentle calm spreading inside him. It wasn't even difficult to ignore the two knights who were following him. They had tried being discreet when they saw him leave his new quarters, had not stopped him from walking out, and so Zola thought he might pretend they weren't even here at all. Thankfully though, they walked at a safe enough distance from him that it didn't look like he was being escorted. He wanted to explore, not be the center of anyone's attention. 

It was early, and yet the sun was already shining bright. There were only a few people in the streets leading away from the palace and it made it easier for Zola to walk with his head high, to ignore to boisterously loud memories of the hate he had seen spilling the night before. The few people he did cross paths with either did not acknowledge him, which was perfect, or smiled at him softly, the way one does when crossing someone in the street they don't know and have every intention of forgetting the next second. 

It was comfortable, and soothing in its very own right. 

Walking had always cleared Zola's mind of most unpleasantness. Be that arguing with his sisters, or wanting to take up the piano when his father insisted he play the southern bagpipe, or even letting down his mother by talking to too many suitors just because — it was fun. The wind in his hair, or tickling his calves, it had always brought him back to what mattered, and Zola intended to see it work as such this time as well. 

The sinuous streets somehow seemed to all converge to one place, one big square of marble after all the dusty, glaise-tiled paved ways Zola had taken. And on it was a market, immense and bustling with activity, pulsing from every tent and pathway with more and more vendors and curious or focused customers. 

It was perfect. Exactly the sort of setting Zola could get lost in and forget who he was and what he was here to do in the first place. So in he went. 

Apart from the sounds, voices chatting or advertising, paper wrappings folded every which way and golden utensils helping one customer or other to a kilo of fruit, or spices… there were scents assaulting Zola's nostrils, sometimes caressing as he walked through a path of pastries, sometimes rough as he did the same through stalls of cheese or of cleaning powders. The colors of the spice tables and the shines of the fabric merchants' wares all sent Zola's mind through loops and loops of more daydreaming. 

The people here looked happy, busy, and passionate. It was everything he loved and had hoped to find the day before, and even if the nagging question of why his welcoming assembly had been so hateful remained, Zola chose to appreciate them in the here and now. No one here seemed to know who he was, the context perhaps too different and his fleeting passage the day before, flanked by Knights and following the King too hazy for anyone present there and here to pin him as himself, rather than another stranger at the market, not like back down the palace's hallways where everyone whose eyes he had met had looked at him like they felt sorry for him. 

They had looked at him like he had lost everything crossing the delta to their shore, to their King. 

Zola refused to believe them, and the indifference of the people here was blissfully helpful. 

So he had some grapes at the market, like Heloise had told him, and he sidestepped drunken sailors walking through the same aisles he did in search of something to eat before they boarded their ships again. 

It was a good morning, and he intended to keep it that way.    


* * *

"Did you see him? Lola says she did but I don't believe her. I think she's just saying that to sound interesting when really, she wouldn't recognize a Southshored if one spat in her face!" 

"I didn't. But Marta lives, or lived, actually, with Heloise? You know the girl with the braids? And she moved out, Heloise — not Marta — because the King's mother picked her! To be the Lionheart's maid!" 

"I can't believe this." 

"What?" 

"What does she have that I don't that she gets picked to tend to the future star of the North and I have to keep picking up tulips in the gardens…" 

"If the princess heard you talk of your job this way, she would not be pleased with you, Elda." 

"She doesn't like me anyway." 

"Pff. She likes you too much, and doesn't want anyone to know, is what I think." 

"You think too many things, Lily." 

"Hmm." 

* * *

"Who decides who works at the palace and who does not?" Zola asked Heloise that night, still smiling quite fondly as he remembered the girls he had accidentally overheard at the market. 

Heloise looked up from where she was massaging his calves — the oil she used smelled of sea-water and lavender incense, it was heady, and perfect to lull his overactive mind to rest. 

"The Queen Mother does," Heloise said. "Any reason you ask, Zola?" 

Try as he could have, Zola already knew he could not lie to her, she was too perceptive, probably too used to reading through elegant half-truths if she had been chosen to work among a class or people notorious for their reserve in everything. So he didn't. 

"I was at the market this morning, as I said, and heard some girls talking about it. So I wondered, that's all," he told her, and then, as though it was only an afterthought and not the real reason behind his question, Zola asked, "Was it always this way?"

Heloise's brows and lips pinching at once were answer enough, but her gentle soul probably pushed her to try and coat the truth in more words than were needed for she explained, her voice soft and again, sorry for him. "No, the King did it, once. I am not at liberty to say anything more though, sir, it is not for a lack of interest in your care." 

Zola huffed a laugh that he immediately despised — now he sounded sorry for himself, too — "Thank you for trying, Heloise, but the King has made it quite clear he does not indeed, have any interest in that. Or if he does, it is well-hidden." 

"Not that well." Heloise shrugged, leaving his calves alone and getting up. "From you, certainly. But everyone else who passes through these quarters knows he has come in here to watch you sleep last night, sir." 

If Heloise was looking for a way to cut the grass under his feet, she certainly found it. Zola knew his eyes were rounder than propriety dictated, but he couldn't help it. 

"He has?" 

Heloise hummed, smiling. 

"Do you need anything else for the night, my prince?" 

The title still annoyed Zola, but between the fact that she knew it did, and how stunned he felt, Zola just grunted a rather poor negation to the question. 

"Good night, Zola." 

"Night, Heloise." He said, distracted. 

He did not watch her leave this time, nor did he collapse inside the cocoon of his sheets. Not just yet. Instead, he sat on the edge of his bed, leaving his windows open for the wind to blow at the curtains, and smiled at no one but himself. 

The nagging feeling he had had in the morning had proven true, and he wasn't quite sure how he felt about it, but it promised better dreams than the ones he'd had the night before. 

Much better dreams. 

* * *

### The third of moons incomplete

Zola once again woke up alone the next day, and for all that he tried remaining hopeful, cheerful even, loneliness was getting to him. He had never been a true loner and the absence of his sisters and friends from the South cut into his mood more than he had anticipated it would. But then again, he had not known he would be left to his own devices so early, or at all. 

So he told Heloise, the only one who at least appeared to care what he did and where he went, that he would go back into the village today, explore some more.

“Have some of the pastries near the gates,” she told him this time, and added again, “And be careful of the handsy sailors.” 

* * *

Zola startled out of his reverie when someone cleared their throat behind him. He pulled his hand back into the large pocket of his robe, sheepish as he turned around to see who had reprimanded him, fully anticipating it to be one of the not quite invisible knights following him around. 

It was not one of the knights.

He didn't know the woman, but then again, apart from the Guard, his maids and the King himself, Zola didn't know anyone here, did he? But he could tell she was nothing like the girls he had seen at the market, and even less like the woman who worked down at the docks on the fishing ships. 

Her robes resembled his own too much, and looked even more sophisticated in places. Her hair, too, had little ornaments wedged in various locks and behind her ears. 

She was rather beautiful, and although Zola had never looked at women the way he did men; he saw how fine her traits were, and the way she glared at him was certainly making an impression on him. 

But of all the things he noticed in those few seconds before he apologized for his carelessness, what struck him almost silent was the color of her eyes. The blue and green laced together to stare him into place — so alike the gaze of the man Zola had been yearning for for two days now. 

"You are the princess," he said, blurted more like, and felt his cheeks burn as the woman raised a single eyebrow at him, crossing her arms over her chest. 

"What a cavalier way of addressing me then, Prince Zolainas," she confirmed. 

Somehow, Zola noted, her tone bordered on amused rather than annoyed, which helped make him feel light, that feeling he had chased all morning without success. "My apologies, my surprise at meeting you here rather than at the palace got the better of my manners." 

"Anna-Appolina," she told him. "I was away, hence our not having met yet, and these are the royal tulips, of which I am in charge, so you shan't be surprised to find me here if ever you come back." 

Zola was torn between feeling properly chastised and irrepressibly curious to know more about the woman, the Northshore princess, the sister of his husband. His mother would say a hasty retreat would be preferable given the way the princess kept staring at him; but he thought she was probably weighing the same options he did — leave, or try to learn more. 

“Care to walk with me?” she asked, relieving Zola of a decision he was in no place to make to begin with. 

He couldn’t help but smile. “It would be my pleasure.” 

At least he hoped it would be. She was scaring him a little. Her presence projected an aura onto Zola that he couldn’t quite define nor shrug off easily should he want to. Still, it would be nice talking to someone new, if nothing else. 

They walked in silence at first, their respective robes rustling with their steps and the wind the only sounds that could be heard for miles, it seemed. The quiet surrounded them like a bubble. All Zola could smell were the tulips’ fragrance and the peculiar yet pleasant salt in the air from the sea being so close. All he could think about though, was that if they didn’t stop walking soon, he would embarrass himself by tripping on the smallest rock or the most innocuous weed in the ground.

They did stop quickly enough, near a bench made of stone and yet shining like gold dust had been blown atop its surface. 

“Let us sit,” Anna-Appolina said, and did. 

Zola opened his mouth to say something, found her studying his face so carefully he forgot what, and closed it again. It seemed to amuse her — she didn’t smile, but her eyes did. 

“I have to admit, I am deeply curious about you.” Her words made Zola raise an eyebrow much in the same way she had a few minutes before. 

“You are?” he asked.

His question proved quite unnecessary since she turned sideways, presumably so she could see more of him, and continued. “My brother is a man of secrets these days. Hence he did not tell of his reasons for electing you as his second Lionheart. He could have…” She kept talking, surely explaining what Eli could have decided, but Zola would not know. He was stuck on a specific word he hadn’t expected —

“Second?” he asked, imitating her as he leaned his side on the back of the bench to face her. “You said second Lionheart. There was a first?”

Anna-Appolina’s gaze clouded as she went silent.“You don’t know.” 

“What do I not know?”

“It is not my place to say.” 

“You are the princess, surely you are free of saying anything you want?” Zola pressed.

“No. Although I do not know half my brother’s reasons for keeping the secrets he does, in this case, if you are to know anything, it will be because he told you. Not me. But no, you are not the first Lionheart-to-be to have come across shores. He simply did not come from the South, but the East where the sea is large and does not flow between shores.”

Zola frowned, taking the little information she was giving him in. Trying to reconnect it with everything he had been taught about royal marriages and the voice’s rituals. Trying to remember everything his parents had told him about their own and how they had tried to prepare him for his.

"He used to call me his Holy Poli.” Anna-Appolina once again pulled Zola out of his own head, back to her and her changing the subject at hand. “Eli, he used to call me that. I hated it as a child, but I miss it now. He was a softer man then." 

Zola nodded, “He certainly has not been anything close to that since I arrived.” 

He tried, so hard, not to sound bitter, or sad, or even resentful, but it was difficult. He had prepared for this time all his life. Had spent so many days and nights thinking about how the week leading to the final ritual would be like. Had envisioned late walks on the edge of the shore, had pictured stolen kisses far from the chaperones, had wished for tenderness in the early stages of getting to know his future husband and King, and got to experience none of it. 

“You mustn't hold my brother too much of a grudge. As I said, he has his reasons for having chosen this time, and therefore  _ you _ , when he could have gone on ruling on his own.” 

“How long has it been? Surely you can tell me that?” Zola asked, aware that he sounded pleading but if he was to believe her and do as she asked, he needed something to hold onto, something to excuse the King for having him believe he was readying himself for the exact opposite of the marriage he had dreamed up in his head. 

“Four years,” she said, somber.

“The war of the central lands.” Zola’s eyes went wide, watching his hands as if to count his fingers to make sure he was right, only to look back into Anna-Appolina’s eyes and have it confirmed there. 

“The war of the central lands,” she whispered, nodding. 

Silence stretched between them then, thick and unforgiving, spiked in its truth, slicing into Zola’s heart as he tried to figure the pain of losing one’s love in battle — honor simply did not seem enough of a consolation.

The princess stood up after a while and against all protocol, extended Zola her hand to follow suit. She had a stronger grip than her appearance might have suggested, and yet the exact strength to her hand that Zola would have imagined given the person he was being introduced to.

“Let me show you the King’s favorite of our tulips,” she offered, and Zola once again acquiesced. 

Flowers always were a comfort — blooming in a cycle, dying when they were meant to, fertilizing the ground for more of their peers to see the sun’s light. Beautiful in their ephemeral essence.

Zola could have stayed with Anna-Appolina for hours, letting her guide him through entire rows of tulips, some whiter than he had ever seen any flower, some pinker than the sun rising, some blue as the armors of the Guard. It was breathtaking, and through it all, the wind and Anna-Appolina’s voice melded to create the tissue of this moment and carry Zola through what he had learned today, and what to make of it. 

All good things must come to an end, Zola’s mother always said, and as she was mostly always right, a member of the Guard appeared at the end of the yellow tulips’ row. 

“The King has asked for you.” The man bowed his head to his princess and turned away to start walking back to the palace. 

Zola bid a good day and a good-bye to Anna-Appolina and followed the knight. 


	4. day reborn

He could get used to the way the marble halls responded to each of his steps with echoes, Zola mused as he walked behind the knight — he didn’t know him, but he looked less friendly than the ones who he had interacted with on the ship had, or the ones who had let him walk around the city the past two days, so Zola didn’t let himself be distracted and kept up the pace. 

The quarters he should have started referring to as his own by now were empty when they got here. Empty and dark. So much so that Zola almost huffed, annoyed that his conversation with the princess had been cut short when he had been enjoying her company and learning so much from her. Lucky he didn’t huff though, for King Eli entered the room not a minute later and once the knight had turned on the various lights, he left them alone. 

Zola watched his husband as he stood a few feet away from him, silent. He could see the resemblance with Anna-Appolina in more than their eyes now. Could see the way their cheekbones were round on both, the way their necks were slightly too short, and although the princess adorned it with necklaces that pulled one’s attention away, all there was on the King’s neck were scars and the fact that his shoulders were large enough that it felt natural his neck shouldn’t be longer than it was. Zola tried to make the man meet his gaze, without success. He waited for an explanation of why he had been called back in to begin with, and when all that came was more of this uncomfortable silence he was starting to associate with the man, Zola grabbed the little bravery he had and talked first.

"I was walking with your sister," he said, going for nonchalant and failing miserably, incapable of looking away as he searched Eli’s face for a reaction. 

The king just stared into the emptiness behind Zola’s right ear, his voice emptier than Zola could bear. "Oh?" 

So he pushed on. "She told me about her old nickname." 

That made the man twitch in place for a moment, and then finally, move. Eli stepped forward, and then like he’d reached some invisible mark, stopped again, his arms balancing aimlessly at his sides. He was frowning when he finally asked, "Hmm, what else did she tell you?" 

Zola watched the King carefully, half expecting another outburst like the one he’d been at the receiving end of that first night as he crossed his arms and forced his lips into a pout — his sister would say it wasn’t cute, but the King’s brows knitted in response, which worked just as well for Zola.

"I'm not telling you.” He clicked his tongue, then prompted again, “Now why did you call me in?" 

Eli cleared his throat, twice, in much the same fashion Anna-Appolina had, only she had been trying to get his attention; Eli looked like he would rather disappear into the ground than say the words that slipped out of his pursed lips. "The marital ceremony needs to be prepared." 

Zola laughed, a genuine, surprised chuckle that he could not find it in himself to regret. Not when this was the first time he was even in the same room as the King — while awake, since apparently the man liked watching him sleep — since he’d been yelled at and talked up about protocols and propriety. "That's not for another four days though, and I’m not about to talk about fantasies and the ways I imagined you would touch me when you’ve left me alone here for  _ days _ ." 

"Look—" Eli, to his credit, had the good sense to look ashamed, but it did not make Zola’s ire go down an iota. He’d been ruminating over their argument and the consequential silence from the other man for too long. 

"Save it,” he snapped. “What did you want anyway? To practice? Because we can practice, follow the former Kings and Lions' guidance and learn each other's bodies before it seals our fates to one another, this way you may be too busy to yell at me again?" 

"No." Eli responded to Zola's anger with some of his own, which if Zola was honest, only served to fuel him further, making his skin burn where Eli glared at him, making his heartbeat chant in his ears, making him walk up to the man. 

"No?" he asked, his tone accusatory and more pained than he would have liked it. 

They were so close now, Zola was sure Eli could feel how ragged his breathing was. He was sure he could see the fear and the burning hot anger in his eyes, could feel his hands trembling with both even though they weren't touching. And then he wasn't sure of anything anymore, because something unnamed yet fierce, something braver than he'd think himself capable of, washed over him, and they were kissing and this was entirely uncharted territory. 

He did not know what he was doing, or thinking, but he was doing it, and not trying to figure it out. 

It was only afterwards, when it was all over, that Zola noticed how soft and how heated Eli's lips were as they kissed. It was only much later, when he was alone again, that Zola could put into words how it made him feel to kiss a man for the first time, and for it to be this one, his husband, Eli. 

All he knew at that moment, all he felt, was the urgency that was keeping him there, the need to touch, to get a reaction from the other man that wasn't anger or indifference. It worked. 

When Zola drew away, it wasn't because he had been pushed to do so, physically removed from the contact of his mouth to Eli's. It was because he had not one bit of air left in his lungs, and it hurt to try and breathe through a kiss that wouldn't end. Instead of the coldness of before, he saw Eli's cheeks dusted in a pink that was stronger than his scars, yet fainter than the man's favorite tulips had looked. 

Instead of horror, he saw and felt curiosity, a gentleness back in Eli's eyes like the one he had witnessed on the ship as the priestess made them join foreheads. 

Before he lost all this newfound bravery, Zola whispered, as fiercely as he had kissed, "Maybe you and I will get along better than you seem ready to allow. Maybe not. But I'm not telling you what your sister and I talked about. I'd much rather you tell me about it yourself. I'll wait. And besides, tradition says our preparations need to include what we both like, or in my case  _ think  _ we like, in bed, Your Majesty, so maybe you'll find it in yourself to talk to me more gently than you have so far for that part?" 

Zola's strength slowly left him, the courage he had found to say the words and kiss the King took the wind out of his lungs and he knew he had to leave while he still had some sort of upper hand. Won an argument he hadn't wanted to have. Made progress where he had been ready to lose hope. 

He left the main room for his own bedroom, quietly, without looking back until he'd reached the door. Only then, one hand on the handle, did Zola look back at the King. Just a second. Just enough to see the man still standing there, right where he had left him, watching him with a bemused look on his face. 

Victory tasted sweet, a man's lips even sweeter. 

The next day he would have to meet tailors and ladies of the voice to prepare more for the ritual, just as Eli had pointed out — preparations did need to be made. But for now, Zola just rolled around on his bed, unsure if he was laughing or crying, if it was exhaustion or elation. Either way, it felt good. 

* * *

### The fourth of moons incomplete

"Mother!" Eli sounded startled, almost angry, but Zola still wished he was able to see his face properly — it was hard to tell from all the way into his bedroom what the man's expressive face was doing where he sat in one of the plush armchairs by the empty fireside. And the door curtain Zola was peeping through made everything blurry anyway. Quite inadequate for spying effectively. 

"Eliastenas." An older woman, long silver hair flowing down her back and thighs, responded. 

It was the first time Zola saw the Queen Mother — although the market vendors had seemed quite fond of her the way they kept talking about her, he didn't know anything of the woman. Even Anna-Appolina's tales hadn't featured her mother that much. 

All the more reason to listen. 

The Queen walked up to Eli, heels clicking dully on the carpet. 

"Anna-Appolina couldn't hold her tongue, I presume?" Eli's voice gave Zola chills. It was the voice of that first night. Nothing at all to do with the one he'd used on the ship or even that which he'd spoken in the night before. 

"Leave your sister where she is," the Queen snapped, surprising Zola enough that he almost audibly squealed. It seemed to surprise Eli too, for he did not rein in his gasp before it was too late. "What you are doing is not right, Eli." Queen Ola started again. "I know he is not Sebastian, no one will ever be Sebastian, but you have to give him a chance. Give yourself a chance at happiness, son, please. Poli said she liked him, and she doesn't like many people these days." 

Zola felt his cheeks burn at the admittedly mild yet unsuspected praise. He also felt his heart, and his body altogether, freeze at what had come before. 

_ Sebastian. _

"It is not being unfaithful to your love to take someone new to support you through life, son. It is not betraying our dear Sebastian to let him coexist in your heart with Prince Zolainas." 

"Zola," Eli said, making Zola's eyebrows rise. 

"Pardon me?" 

"Not much into protocols. He prefers Zola," Eli explained, and out of the corner of his eye, Zola could see his mother nod slowly — he couldn't look away from Eli, though. His husband, seated in a chair that was just big enough to accommodate his large shoulders and white-knuckling its arms. 

"No one is asking of you that you forget your first husband, you know that, don't you, son?" 

Zola knew he was intruding. Deep down he knew it, but he couldn't make himself move away from the door, couldn't make himself move away from learning more about the man who had been keeping him at arms' length this whole time when they were supposed to be married, when he was the one who had called on to the voice to declare himself ready to remarry. 

"I know." Eli answered his mother, and maybe Zola couldn't hear as much as he wished, maybe he couldn't see very well, but Eli's voice sounded muffled and the way he put his face in his hands next certainly let him assume he was crying. And it broke his heart. 

Zola was lucky enough that he had never had to face the loss of anyone who he had known and loved. Grief was a concept, an abstraction he had heard and read about, tried to envision as a fact of life but without any experience to give it the texture of reality. 

Even so, Eli's tears tore through him like a weapon might have, only with more slice for he had not yet known how much of Eli's pain he could feel. Practically none, before last night, if Zola were to guess, but of a first kiss sprang new bonds, the voice told, and of that one kiss came Zola's eyes misting over for his husband, mourning another. 

When Heloise came in to dress him later, Zola was back in bed. Rather than say anything, she came closer, Zola watching her through bleary eyes, and climbed onto his bed. She lay on her side, her head cushioned on her arm, silent. 

"Thank you." Zola whispered, hours later, when he did not have one tear left in him and Eli's sobs had died down even inside his mind. 

Heloise just smiled, and closed her eyes, so he followed suit. 

* * *

### The fifth of moons incomplete

The beach had always been Zola's happy place. The one spread of land where he wasn't expected to act as anything but himself, for himself, alone with his thoughts and the water. Watching it back and forth across the sand soothed him like nothing else could, and so, after the wave of emotions he'd experienced the day before, it was only natural that he had once again found his way to the shore, even though he was across to the other side now. 

It was natural, and it was easier to breathe here. Easier to sort his thoughts too. 

Because learning about and hurting for Sebastian's fate and Eli's grief was one thing, but the window of clairvoyance it gave him into who  _ his _ husband was, and who Zola might have to show himself to be, it was more precious than he could articulate. More precious than he'd been able to fully take in back into his bedroom, where he was never sure exactly how close Eli was. 

Where he might say something he hadn't thought through again— although that too, had worked out much better than Zola could have assumed had he thought about his actions before kissing the King and challenging him as he had done. 

Eli liked being pushed back on. It was Zola's realization. The one he had woken up to, fresh of an entire night's sleep and a bit of a day, too. 

He liked push back and he liked Zola brasher than most people ever had. 

He was scared, just like Zola was. 

He was lonely, something Zola could relate to in theory, yet could not completely encompass even now that he had sensed some of Eli's loss. 

Zola loved the look in Eli's eyes after their kiss. He loved the way Eli had talked about him to his mother, both the tone and the words, and the way the Queen Mother had put in a word for him without ever having met him. 

Zola wanted this to work. He wanted a happy life. He wanted Eli. 

Maybe Eli had been watching him this whole time, he might have even followed him to the beach right from when Zola left his room — all Zola knew was that one minute he was watching the water, and the next, the faint clap of the sea was interspersed with the grind of footsteps in the sand right behind him. And then Eli was sitting next to him, royal robes be damned. 

"This was always a favorite spot of mine." Eli was not looking at Zola but watching the horizon just like Zola had busied himself with. "Came here with Poli, came here with my husband, came here on my own, after." 

Zola bit the inside of his cheeks — again, that peak of searing hot yet freezing cold pain in his heart. 

"I know you know," Eli added, this time meeting Zola's gaze.

"I didn't mean to—"

"You would have found out at one point or another. Or felt it like I felt your compassion yesterday, like I still feel it." 

Zola nodded then, a little struck-dumb because, although all that was true, he had not expected Eli to admit it let alone say it to him in any kind of direct address. Nor had it sunk in that if he felt Eli's grief, Eli, too, felt Zola's turmoil now. 

"Let's start over?" Zola offered, when Eli's eyes were still boring into his own and all Zola wanted was to climb into the man's lap and kiss him again. 

"Start over?" 

"Start over." Zola nodded, rising to his knees facing Eli's side and succumbing to the pull in his mind. 

Eli let him slide onto his lap hesitantly, closing his arms around him, embracing Zola in arms that were so strong and so warm Zola could have cried if he was still capable of doing that. 

"May I kiss you?" Eli asked, the large fingers of one ringed hand shaking almost imperceptibly next to Zola's face. 

"Please do." 

The kiss was different than that first one had been. It was slower, and it felt like an exploration rather than a crash. A smooth-sailing fleet of two vessels that wanted to meet in the middle waters, peaceful, yet unnerved. It was followed by another one, and by Eli's hands grabbing Zola's hip and shoulder, and by Zola gripping the back of Eli's neck and threading his fingers in his graying hair. 

It was beautiful in a totally novel way. Yet another thing Zola had tried to picture, and came short of — he never wanted to stop. 

Even after, when they had no breath and the sun was starting to lower slowly, even when they got up and Eli held his hand as they walked on the beach together, even then, he could taste the tingle of their kisses on his lips still. 

Even when Eli told him, throat sounding tight and his face wrinkled by memories, about Sebastian and their week of the moons, about this man who had been a torrent of passion in his life and had proved to the whole country how fierce a warrior he was — even then, Eli kept Zola's hand in his, and gave Zola the gift of continuing to feel the newborn sensations of having a husband. 

They walked for what might have been hours, might have been days, and Zola felt like the center of the world as much as he felt like the center of his universe had just shifted. 

When they made it back to the palace, and to their quarters, it was to find them empty save for the silver trays of food left in the main room by the maids. 

They ate in relative silence, like their words had been exhausted for the day, and like they had done this always. 

"Sleep with me tonight?" 

It wasn't exactly what the voice told, nor exactly what the generations taught but— 

"Protocols be damned, hm?" Eli asked, his gentle smile back to pulling his lips up, putting that light Zola was starting to crave in his eyes. 

"You get it." Zola winked, and laughed as Eli laughed. 

They slept in Zola's bed, legs tangled, foreheads joined and hands linked. Softer words and confessions were whispered between Zola's sheets, both floaty with joy. Peaceful for the first time in days, maybe in years. 


	5. solar eclipse

### The sixth of moons incomplete

"Why did the people welcome us the way they did? Do they hate you? Or me?" 

Zola's voice was small, he knew it was, but it had been on his mind for days, on the tip of his tongue still ever since the first time he'd asked and been told off. He was scared, even after the day he and Eli had had, that this time wouldn't be any different than the first. He was scared it would throw them right back to square one. But he had to know. Couldn't let go of his first meeting with the people of the North, when every single one he had had afterwards had been peaceful and pleasant, when the only violence he had witnessed as he explored this shore had come from inebriated and playful sailors. 

He had to know, and so he squared his jaw, and although sleep still clung to him, he did his best to look as determined as he felt when Eli sighed, and turned on his side to look at him. 

Zola also had to concentrate not to let himself be distracted by the fact that his husband looked very different in the morning, yet the same. The scars on his chest crisscrossed with the darkest hair in places, the brightest silver in others. He looked like the great warrior Zola's father had told tales about, but he looked softer, he looked sleepy, and above all, he looked like in a day from now, he would truly be Zola's. 

"Good morning to you, too." Eli huffed, his voice just as rough with sleep as his face was. 

It made Zola smile, and turn on his side to see him better too. Instead of answering, and therefore allowing Eli to divert the subject, Zola took the liberty of stretching up until he could press their lips together. A soft, intimate touch that made his heart thud in its cage and Eli's lips twitch in a smile. Then he drew back, and waited. 

Eli took a deep breath, his eyes screwing shut for a moment like he couldn't look at him until he found the right words. Zola took his hand where it laid between them. He played with Eli's fingers, and was patient. 

"Hate is a strong word. And my,  _ our _ people are strong, yes, but they do not hate. They hurt. They are hurting as I am hurting as you hurt with me through our bond, however fragile it may be for now." 

Zola bit his lip, nodding. 

"Sebastian was loved, and I… I stopped being their King when he died. I stopped looking after the shore when my— when… I just couldn't. Mother, and my sister took over. I'm sure you heard good things about them during your walks. But I was here, alone, and I couldn't face any of them." 

While he kept silent, Zola could not bear to stay so far from Eli that he couldn't comfort him but by touching his hand, and so he inched closer and closer. Just like the priestess had, he joined their foreheads, and looked deep into Eli's eyes. Let him feel Zola's own emotions. Let him regroup. 

"Poli told the people of my intentions to remarry when I didn't want them to know until it was done. She told them right before I got on the boat, because a people must be with their King in prayer as he sails the delta she said—"

"The voice says." Zola corrected softly.

"I know." Eli shuddered. 

"So Anna-Appolina told the people, and they resented you for not telling them yourself." 

"They did." 

It took a moment, which Zola filled with gentle rubs of his fingers over Eli's chest, and down his hips, and up again around his neck, but eventually Eli talked again. 

"Mother says they are ready to love again, just like I am, if only I open up to them, and you do too." 

"Lionheart—"

"—a roar that echoes—"

"—from the crown to the people." Zola finished, the words of the oath he was to take also echoing in his mind, and between Eli and him. Echoing everywhere as truth, and as the presence of the voice, right here with them in this bed and life, always. "I am ready. Are you?" 

Eli sobbed then, just like he had when the Queen Mother had been here, and this time, instead of a curtain and a door and what seemed like miles of carpet, nothing kept Zola from winding his arms around the man. So he did. 

"King and Lionheart," Zola whispered.

"King and Lionheart." Eli repeated in Zola's neck, "Anew." 

* * *

### The stars and the moon round align

On the day of the sixth and one moon, the voice said, newlyweds were to take a march through the house that was their home, and through the land that was altogether their charge, their future, and their love. They were to walk, in the dress of a wedding, through the halls of the palace and down its many stairs, through the rooms that were inhabited and not, their hands linked through every door and around every corner until they passed the arch of its entry, and made it into the world where lines of the people awaited. They were to walk heads high and meet the gazes of an assembly they would serve and rule. 

Zola's body felt alight with the warmth of Eli's and that of their bond, strengthening with every step. He felt more alive than he ever had. More awake than even water splashed over his face would make him feel. More ready than he ever would be. More supported, by the contact of Eli's hand in his, by the memory of his lips on his, by the sound of his voice in his mind, and by the power of the voice itself as they took their march and proceeded with the ritual outside the safe walls of the palace into the city and its paved streets. 

Into the city and its streets walled with the people come for the ritual, come to see them and be a part of the crowd that would crown or defeat their purpose. 

Zola watched every face he saw with care, vowed himself to their wills and needs, gave his person and soul to their regency. He walked, with the man who was King, and who was his. With the people who watched and clapped their hands or shouted without the anger of his first day in the Northshore, but with the hope he could feel inside himself, and in each gaze he could meet. 

Eli's hand was a constant pressure, the truth of the voice clear in its hold. 

Eli's steps matched his own perfectly, like they had rehearsed this march every day of their lives. 

They reached the water after hours of walking from one street to the next, through the markets and down the gardens, over hills and plains, past stone benches and gleefully silent docks. The crowd walked behind them, through every street thicker, more populous the more steps they took, until they stopped with their sandalled feet tickled by the sea. 

Until all, they looked up to the skies and chanted the psalms and the tellings, together. As one people, as one crown, as the shore assembled to marry a King to his Lionheart to their people. 

* * *

Of all the rituals in the tales, some were more detailed than others. Some were augmented with the tales and wisdom of Kings, Queens and Lionhearts past. Some were guidance and some were rule. Some were personal preference and most were truth in experience. 

Eli and Zola had completed all but two of them. 

One said they were to guide each other in how to touch them in a way that would ensure pleasure — they had not, in fact, done this, not in the way the tales dictated at least. They had, the night before, let hands wander to make the other gasp, let lips brush the shell of an ear or the rise of a collarbone. They had taught each other by way of experiencing it, through the propriety of night clothes and with enough sense left in them to not break their wait for the rounded moon. It was more hands-on than either of them had been told to proceed, but it had worked for them and it made Zola confident than the rest would follow. 

The other, told of the vows to take and the ways to meet the awaited moon complete. They were ready to take those vows and to meet their celestial truth tangled in each other, sharing breath as they would for life, and thereafter. 

Zola laid in the center of a bed not yet his. A bed he had not seen prior to this day. Eli's bed, with its silk outside and linen interior. With its pillows that mountained against the engraved headboard. With its owner standing right at its foot, watching Zola with all the power of his large frame and of his darkened eyes. Watching Zola in all the glory of his body bared of any garments while Zola still wore the lace and sheer fabric of the wedded. 

"I need you," Zola breathed, the truth of his word bending his body in its middle, making him arch in Eli's direction. But he couldn't move. Eli was the one with the power to take him and elevate them. He was the one in charge of joining their bodies for a first time that would seal their destinies to one another. 

And Zola watched him, as Eli watched him too. 

" _ Eli _ ," he breathed, and again, "Eli… Eli…" 

The name fell off his lips as he felt touched by a grace he had never known, a heat seeping into every pore of his skin, sinking deep into his muscles, aching to burst in faith, and love, and carnal proof of their world uniting. 

Eli first put one knee on the edge of the bed, and then the second. He stayed there a minute, an hour longer, Zola could not tell time any more than he could tell who he was except for the need he felt spread inside him. And then Eli lowered his weight onto his arms, and he was above him, and Zola couldn't resist the way everything in him pulled him towards Eli. 

In a whine of despair, he wrapped his arms around Eli's neck, and their lips touched, and they claimed each other. 

Eli gasped in Zola's mouth, and Zola slipped his tongue in it, caressing Eli's teeth and searching for Eli's tongue too. Eli let his arms give out from under him to embrace Zola's shoulders, to angle his head the way he needed it. He let their bodies touch, noses bumping to legs tightening around one another. 

He let his arousal be known, and Zola's legs spread for it as if on instinct. 

His robe was torn to shreds, by hands Zola had admired that first day, and gotten to feel in ways other than this one before. In ways that did not come close to the pleasure of feeling them, rough and scarred, like the rest of Eli's strong body, mapping his chest and his sides, and hiking up his legs around Eli's waist. 

Eli's large fingers, that tore gasps and whimpers from Zola's lips, as they entered him, oiled and searing hot, chasing a rush, that of loosening his muscles enough to welcome Eli himself in. 

The glow of the tales, a halo of light and heat, bright and blinding for everything but each other, spread from around them, enveloping their embrace in the power that was uniting them. 

" _ Zola… _ " Eli groaned, the most beautiful sound Zola had ever heard, his name uttered in bliss when his husband's cock breached him. When his and his King's body found the closest point they could ever reach and the glow got stronger, and stronger, and it was time. 

Eli thrust into him slowly, the smooth skin of his cock dragging into him in ways more pleasurable than Zola would ever have hoped of experiencing. 

Eli made love to him and Zola framed Eli's face in his hands, his waist in his legs, his eyes in his gaze and they started. Amidst gasps and soft moans, lost in pleasure yet clear-voiced as they spoke the words of the voice together —

"Trust me with your body, trust me with your heart. Trust me with the thoughts that wander in your mind, trust me with the blood that courses through your veins. Trust me to be here and to learn you more always. Trust me to teach you me, and to smile in the face of an eternity with you at my side. Trust me, and I will gift you my soul, heart and body. For you and I were chosen to be together and together we will be, through war and peace and life and through death, too."

"For you are a King and I am a Lionheart. For you are my King and I am your Lionheart,"

"For you are a Lionheart and I am a King. For you are my Lionheart and I am your King," 

"And thus we shall link our fingers, and meld our hearts and our crown shall be made lighter, and my soul shall be made twin to yours. Trust me." 

The stars aligned with the moon on the night of the six and one, red in their bright fire, incandescent in their merciful power descending upon a King who had lost his star and found one anew, and a Prince who was now made a Lionheart, to be cherished and acclaimed, sitting at the feet of his beloved. 

Zola's eyes closed and opened again, filled with the tears of overwhelm, and he cried, and Eli's own tears were salty where they landed in the corner of his lips. 

They were one, as the voice had told, and as they had prayed to become. They were one, thus fulfilling the wishes of their people rallied, and the needs of a shore adrift for too long. 

A King, and a Lionheart. 


End file.
